1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a disc recording and/or playback apparatus compatible with a disc cartridge housing a disc-shaped recording medium such as optical disc or the like, and more particularly, to a disc recording and/or playback apparatus compatible with a disccartridge of a type housing a disc-shaped recording medium in the body thereof, having formed inthe body a write and/or read aperture through which the disc-shaped recording medium is partially exposed to outside in a range between inner and outer radii thereof, and provided with a shuttermember that is to open and close the write and/or read aperture, and a disc cartridge of a type housing a disc-shaped recording medium in a body thereof, having a write and/or read apertureformed in the cartridge body through which part of the disc-shaped recording medium is exposedto outside in a range between inner and outer radii thereof, and not provided with any shutter member that is to open and close the write and/or read aperture that will thus be left open.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the past, there is widely used the disc cartridge having a disc-shaped recording medium such as optical disc housed rotatably in a body thereof and which is to be loaded in a disc recording and/or playback apparatus with the disc-shaped recording medium being housed in the cartridge body. The disc cartridge of this type can protect the disc-shaped recording medium housed therein and facilitate loading and unloading of the disc-shaped recording medium into and from the disc recording and/or playback apparatus.
The above disc cartridge has formed therein a write and/or read aperture through which the signal recording area of, for example, an optical disc housed in the cartridge body is partially exposed to outside in a range between inner and outer radii thereof. An optical pickup or a magnetic head of a write/read means provided at the disc recording and/or playback apparatus approaches the write and/or read aperture and scans the signal recording area of the optical disc, thereby recording or reproducing information signals to or from the optical disc.
However, if the write and/or read aperture formed in the cartridge body is left open, dust will possibly come into the cartridge body and contaminate the optical disc during storage of the disc cartridge or foreign matter coming into the cartridge body will possibly damage the optical disc during loading or unloading the optical disc into or from the disc recording and/or playback apparatus.
To overcome the above problems, the disc cartridge is provided with a shutter member to open and close the write and/or read aperture. Since the shutter member closes the write and/or read aperture while the disc cartridge is loaded in the disc recording and/or playback apparatus, the optical disc housed in the cartridge body can positively be protected.
Note here that it has been required that the disc-shaped recording media, especially, optical discs from and/or to which information signals are written or read, should be higher in recording density and larger in recording capacity. As a result, there have been proposed optical discs designed higher in recording capacity and so small that it can be held as a whole in the palm of one hand. The Applicant of the present invention proposed a disc cartridge housing an optical disc of this type in the Japanese Patent Application JP 2004-140491.